1925: The Great Gatsby
Author/Editor: F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby portrays a group of wealthy New Yorkers in the 1920’s and their romantic escapades. Distinction is made between “old” money and “new” money, a result of the booming economy and growth of self-made industrialists. Relevant topics to the time period such as prohibition, decreasing morality as a result of increased materialism, and post-World War I cynicism are expressed, as Fitzgerald seems to yearn for a more wholesome American society.
Fitzgerald died before The Great Gatsby became immensely popular, but he has been credited with being the 1920’s most famous chronicler and, indeed, with dubbing the era as “The Jazz Age”.
